Memory...Nostalgia...Recall ---- Dementia. Connections?

[Paco Dennis]

This video is about a famous actress that can recall every hour of her life! Lately I have been experiencing forgetfulness 30 minutes later. I am not letting it bother me, but it is annoying when it involves something "important" to me. Maybe us retired folk don't need all that speed at recalling what we are as we did when making a living and/or raising a family. So we often explore memories that we remember. Experiences we had while growing up, when romance bloomed, unique events, scenes, etc.... Memories are our version of the "now" that happened long ago, and is forever gone, or is it always present? We have all heard of revisionist history, and it applies when we remember our past. Our version of what happened might not be as factual as what think happened. We seem to recall much of our past in a kind of cloudy way until we see something "real" in the clouds.
There only like 10 people in the world who have total recall. I am extremely fascinated by this phenomena.

 

[horseless carriage]

Whilst forgetfulness can be frustrating, you're right not to let it bother you. My doctor gave me a good analogy when she compared memory with a home computer. The more that the computer is used the slower it gets because it's searching through, ever more information. The comparison being that the older we are the more we have experienced and therefore the more we have to remember.

What I find curious is that long term memory remains pin sharp. I can easily recall the names of the children that I sat amongst at school when I was five years old, but just try remembering what each meal was, that I ate, on each weekday last week.

 

[hollydolly]

Whilst forgetfulness can be frustrating, you're right not to let it bother you. My doctor gave me a good analogy when she compared memory with a home computer. The more that the computer is used the slower it gets because it's searching through, ever more information. The comparison being that the older we are the more we have experienced and therefore the more we have to remember.

What I find curious is that long term memory remains pin sharp. I can easily recall the names of the children that I sat amongst at school when I was five years old,

That's impressive...I can only remember one.. can't even remember my teachers name at 5 years old...nor can I remember my teachers name in my last year of primary school..when I was 11...

 

[ohioboy]

Total recall like that is absolutely humanly impossible.

 

[horseless carriage]

That's impressive...I can only remember one.. can't even remember my teachers name at 5 years old...nor can I remember my teachers name in my last year of primary school..when I was 11...

Impressive, maybe, but there's a mnemonic at work. We had individual desks but two desks were positioned side by side so that each child sat next to one other. The boy that I sat next to was never going to be bright. He copied everything that I did, he would surreptitiously glance towards my work, then rest his chin on the end of his pencil, as if pondering the problem, following that, his eyes lit up like a light bulb moment, as though he had just figured it out, all by himself and finally write down "his answer."

Why was he a mnemonic? I could never forget his name, he got his comeuppance when I became a wicked little boy. We were doing basic arithmetic, but now we had to solve the adding three rows of numbers like this: 77+52+31. I wrote 160 as my answer. Then my copyist would go through his theatrics before writing down his correct answer. So confident was he about me being correct and therefore his answer would also be correct, he didn't bother looking at the blackboard to see the arithmetic sum that the teacher had set, he just copied mine.

We all wrote in pencil back then so I wrote 57+52+31 meaning my answer should have been 140. When I had seen him take the bait and copy me, I was the one that became surreptitious by erasing 57 replacing it with 77. I hadn't better tell you his name, for all I know he might just be reading this. Let's call him John Smith.

The teacher asked him if he had worked out the answer, "Yes Miss," he replied. "Is that so?" He was asked. "Yes Miss." He repeated. "Well, John Smith, you not only copied your work, you like to tell lies too." "Miss?" The poor lad hadn't a clue. The teacher took his work, placed a blank sheet of paper in front of him and told him to write down what he saw on the board. He wrote the correct question. He was then asked to read the first line. "Seventy-seven," Miss, he said. His work was put back in front of him, "now read the first line of your work," he was told. A long silence followed, "come along," the teacher encouraged, "what does it say?" "Fifty-seven," Miss.
"Correct," said the teacher. "Now tell me who is a cheat," she asked. All he could do was repeat, "Miss."

Am I not the most horrible little shit?